72 THE SHRIKE AND THE KING CROW. 



plantar tendons, strikes its talons into the near- 

 est. No other bird that I know of makes its attack in 

 this way, except the birds of prey. The little bird 

 shrieks and struggles, but the cruel Shrike holds 

 fast and hammers at the victim's head with its 

 strong beak until it is dead, then flies away with it to 

 some thornbush which is its larder. There it hangs 

 it up on a thorn and leaves it to get tender. Hence 

 its popular name of Butcher Bird. This is no fable. 

 I have seen the bird do it. 



The Red-backed Shrike (Lanius erythronotus) 

 is the only kind commonly to be met with in Bom- 

 bay. The large grey species (L. lahtora] and the 

 handsome little Bay-backed Shrike (L. hardwickii, or 

 mttatus], both so plentiful in the Deccan, do not like 

 our moist climate. Occasionally, indeed, I have seen 

 a young Bay-back, or a Brown Shrike, about the sea 

 face near the Church Gate Street Station ; but these 

 were stragglers. Even the one species we have will 

 not bring up its family in Bombay. It leaves us before 

 the weather gets hot, and stays away till the rains are 

 over. Its return in September is announced by much 

 harsh, sad screeching. By this it may be recognised, 

 and by its conspicuous white shirt front, long tail and 

 grim black eyebrows. The top of its head and its 

 shoulders and upper back are of a fine grey colour, 

 but the lower part of its back is reddish. Its tail ind 

 wings are black. Though its usual cry is raucous and 

 somewhat dolorous, the Shrike has a flexible voice and 

 is not a bad mimic, I remember one particularly 

 talented individual which lived in a friend's garden 

 and used to entertain him with comic dialogues be- 

 tween bulbuls, lapwings and other birds. The Shrike 



